Social Media Shyness
Facebook tells me it’s been 68 days since I’ve posted anything A Warrior’s Legacy on social media. This does not surprise me in the least (and if you know me personally, it probably doesn’t surprise you either–I mean, having the same profile picture for a year? Absurd!), but I know 68 days is probably something like two years in social media time, so I’m quite behind.
I’ve realized social media is far too immediate for me as a novel writer. With a novel, I have months and months to decide just how to say something, and now with e-books, I could go back and change the whole thing if I really needed to. But with social media, I write a few hundred words and then hit post immediately? Terrifying. As Elizabeth Bennet says in Pride and Prejudice, “We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.”
So perhaps it’s pride that keeps me from making blog posts, but I’ll be easy on myself and say that it’s a carryover from being a reserved person in real life–something I will call social media shyness. But now that I’ve broken the 68-day/two-year silence, let’s move on to the good stuff: book updates.
Orestes
Orestes is selling far better than I ever expected, although in truth I only expected to sell a few copies. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see people virtually picking it up and seeming to enjoy it. It’s still strange to me that Orestes is the first novel in the series that I ended up publishing. Some people may not know this, but A Warrior’s Legacy as a series is actually probably close to 15 years old; however, its earliest stages were mostly elaborate charts, novellas, and short stories. Orestes just happened to be the first novel-length work that has come out of it even though he was one of the last main characters to be added to the whole lore. The series was originally two books about characters who are yet to be introduced, then it grew to four, then six, and finally eight. Orestes was one of the last of the eight, but he ended up being a good starting point for the series for several reasons I can’t share at the moment.
Jamie
In a similar vein, Jamie (aka Book 2, but I’m sick of calling it Book 2, so surprise!) was a later substitute as a main character. She was originally a side character, but as I wrote more short stories and plotted the series better, she kept showing up more and more to the point that she was taking over stories that were not intended to be about her. Thus it only made sense to give her her own book, and I couldn’t be more pleased that I did. I have had so much fun writing her. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s a woman or because her story is so fast-paced, but writing this book has just been a blast, and I seriously can’t wait to share it with you all.
Which leads me to the real update. Although I’m not sure what the final word count will be, I know I’m more than halfway through writing Jamie, and barring any outside disasters, I should have the first draft finished by the end of this year, which means a release date of early 2015. I’m hoping to release at least the first chapter before then (or, if I’m feeling really bold, the first four chapters), but then we’re back to dealing with the pride/social media shyness/perfectionist thing that we started with.
I’m sure I’ve broken another social media rule about being too long-winded, so I’ll stop now that we’ve come full circle. If you’ve read or re-read Orestes lately and have any questions you’re curious about, just leave a comment and I’ll do another blog post about it!